Ryan Snow, a police officer and certified drug recognition expert from the University of Illinois, spoke to students Monday about the harmful effects of cannabis.

The Office of Campus Community Health and Health Studies hosted the event. The office promotes health, provides counseling services and health and wellness programs.

“I’ve done a lot of research outside of my physical position as a police officer on my own time about drugs and the human body and how they impact society,” Snow said. “I try to let them know what’s here, what’s happening and how to fix (the students’) lives.”

Snow said he was inspired to start researching and teaching about cannabis when he discovered the dangers it could cause, such as the impacts of driving while high.

“I really caught a big bug when working as a police officer. I saw the impact impaired driving can have on a community and the innocence of a lot of the victims that are involved with impaired driving crashes and things like that,” Snow said.

In his presentation, Snow said cannabis affects working memory, learning and information processing. He said it can also cause students to skip class and harm their GPA. During his presentation, he talked about a study showing that students who smoke cannabis daily are close to 60 percent less likely to graduate.

“There are plenty of drugs out there that are worse than cannabis, but this is something that’s big and it’s widespread on college campuses and I think more people need to be educated on it rather than just accepting it,” Snow said.

He said cannabis is not always a victimless crime. Snow said a student was killed in 2015 at the University of Illinois over a $70 pot deal.

“Two individuals attempted to rob him…he was shot in the back of the head,” Snow said. “They tried to cover up the murder and dumped his body…it was all over a very small amount of cash…these are campus-level dealers.”

Snow said this death affected everyone, not just the campus.

“It impacted the entire community,” he said.

Snow said he understands many students smoke cannabis to help with anxiety or sleep issues, but these issues could also be caused by withdrawal from cannabis as well. Snow said federal law prohibits any use of cannabis, including medical marijuana at college campuses.

“Anytime you’re self-medicating, it can be dangerous,” Snow said. “Go to your doctor. Talk about your options…explore your own ways to medicate and understand that the decisions you make have consequences one way or another, so if you’re choosing a substance like that to self-medicate, there are consequences that come with that. I would encourage students to look at their options.”

Janis Putnam, professor of nursing, said this is the first time that the Office of Campus Community Health and the Health Studies Program received an opportunity grant to support their research.

“We received a UCM Alumni Foundation Grant for approximately $3,000 to help with the speaker expenses and data collection,” Putnam said. “Our research is exploring the changing cannabis culture on Missouri college campuses and how we can prepare professional development and academic curriculums to meet these needs.”

She said these presentations are helpful to the students and their careers. She said they had about 50 attendees, including officers from Public Safety.

“This is really a sample of professional development,” she said. “We actually had our police officers here. We have people from the Health Center here…so we were actually role modeling as well as having students from classes come in to listen because this is the kind of training they might have in their future careers.”

Yasmine Hora, junior health studies major, said she learned a lot more about cannabis from the event and the many risks it can cause. She said she had a friend overdose on marijuana, making her end up in the hospital.

She said her friend went to a party and didn’t know how much cannabis her friend was consuming. The friend ended up smoking too much for her to handle.

“After that, she drove on the highway which is a bad choice,” Hora said. “She parked her car on the highway and then walked to QuikTrip. From there, before she passed out, she (said) ‘Call 911.’ She was sent to the hospital.”

Hora said this experience was a wake-up call for her and her friend about the potential dangers of cannabis.

“She refuses to go around it now,” Hora said.

Putnam said the information helped students understand cannabis and the effects it could have on their job performance in the future.

“I do think that there’s a lot of information out right now and a lot of information being driven by the industry as far as the benefits,” she said. “So this was a nice counterbalance to talk about the risks. Now I think the students that are here have a little more knowledge on what’s going on out there…there are going to be types of jobs that they may get drug tested in, and to have an understanding of ‘marijuana is not just natural and it’s not just safe,’ but it’s also something that can be tested and lose their job over. That’s an important concept to have.”

Snow said he is not a representative of the University of Illinois during these presentations.